


Something Good

by mmmdraco



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hypnotism, M/M, Panic, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Star Wars References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 12:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5743846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Really? We’re in our senior year of high school, prepping for AP exams and finals and waiting to hear from colleges and they decide that we need to have an assembly with a hypnotist?!” Stiles’ brow furrowed. “Okay, I guess it makes sense. There’s maybe a lot of tension with everyone that a good rousing game of fake mental manipulation should help with. Except… God, this seems like a bad idea.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Good

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hapinessisacliche for the Sterek Secret Santa exchange! (I'm trying to get back into actually writing consistently, but life's a giant floppy donkey dick thwacking me in the skull.)

“Really? We’re in our senior year of high school, prepping for AP exams and finals and waiting to hear from colleges and they decide that we need to have an assembly with a hypnotist?!” Stiles’ brow furrowed. “Okay, I guess it makes sense. There’s maybe a lot of tension with everyone that a good rousing game of fake mental manipulation should help with. Except… God, this seems like a bad idea.”

Scott finished zipping up his backpack, hoisting it up onto his shoulder. “Yeah, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Stiles grinned suddenly. “Did you finally watch it? Okay. Good day restored.”

“Watch what?” Scott turned suddenly, waving to Kira who dashed forward to join them.

With a groan, Stiles ran a hand through his hair. “You’re going to lose a hand at some point because you haven’t watched Star Wars, Scott. Do at least the original trilogy, please? Maybe some machete order?” He licked at his bottom lip, hands going to his hips as he watched Scott walk with Kira, holding hands and entirely enthralled with her. “And you’re ignoring me. Good talk, Scott. I hope you’re the one they make cluck like a chicken.”

Yeah, no. Ten minutes into the presentation, the hypnotist was standing in front of Stiles and asking everyone to clap and otherwise encourage him into one of the brightly colored 70’s-esque chairs lined up along one of the lines on the basketball court. Squaring his jaw, Stiles stood up and yelled, “This is peer pressure. I was told there would be drugs when this happened.” But no one noticed and Stiles stepped over and around people and their things until he could jog down to the chairs.

It seemed easy to just not get hypnotized. After all, he’d outsmarted a nogitsune a few times along the way. But once the hypnotist was standing in front of them and speaking, it was like being drugged. His head felt like it was floating a few inches higher than it normally was and he was feeling a distinct disconnect from the audience. He laughed along with everyone else when Greenberg clucked like a chicken, and when a freshman girl was convinced she was the new captain of the lacrosse team, and when that one guy who had farted really loudly while wearing headphones because he thought no one could hear him suddenly couldn’t spell because he forgot all the vowels.

And then the hyponotist was standing in front of him and he was paying so much attention that it felt like hyperfocus. The man spoke and Stiles listened and obeyed as he was told to count his fingers to ten. A thumb to the index finger. One. Middle finger. Two. Ring. Three. Pinky. Four. Switch hands. Index. Five. Middle. Six. Ring. Seven. Pinky. Eight. Thumb. Nine. There was no ten.

Gasping for a breath, Stiles ran through the sequence again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. He was… dreaming? But, dreaming and feeling like he was floating… He grabbed the man in front of him and twisted to shove him away and then raced out of the gymnasium with people yelling after him. But, no, he was not going to let himself be taken over again.

He ran for what felt like hours, his joints sore from the impact of so many steps, and then he was lost. The school was close enough to the Preserve that he’d found his way inside and stopped beside a tall tree on a path that looked familiar. His heart sinking, he turned and felt his mouth go dry as he saw the stump of the Nemeton. He counted his fingers again. Nine. Closing his eyes, he let himself fall to his knees and screamed, the sound bringing out birds from their perches to streak across the sky and caw at him. The forest was silent, and the Nemeton loomed.

Stiles wasn’t sure how long he sat there, staring at anything that caught his eye, with his hands tucked under him so he wouldn’t see his fingers. It might have been minutes, or possibly hours, but when the forest went silent again, he turned his head and saw a man standing there. Derek. “It’s hilarious, isn’t it?”

Derek shook his head minutely. “What is, Stiles?”

“That I always dream about you?” Stiles laughed, sharp and loud. “I mean, normally we’re in the school locker room for some reason, but this feels more like where we’d actually be somehow. Too bad it isn’t real. I haven’t seen you in so long. I miss you, you asshole.”

Looking confused, Derek walked over next to him and knelt down in front of him. “Stiles, why do you think this isn’t real?”

“Because it’s not. I’ve checked like a dozen times. This is a dream so it doesn’t matter what I do right now. I could climb a tree and jump out, or dance a jig on the Nemeton, or follow a butterfly, or tell you to stop leaving because I think I love you and every time you leave is like right before I get up the nerve to do something about it.” Stiles laughed. “I could kiss you finally, but I don’t think I want our first kiss to not be real.”

Pulling out his phone, Derek tapped something into it and then shoved the phone back in his pocket. “You’re not dreaming. I don’t know why you think you are, but this is real, Stiles.” His phone made a noise and he looked at it again, lips pursing into an O-shape before standing up. “Come with me. We need to go back to the school.”

Stiles shook his head. “I don’t want to. So much bad has happened there…”

“I’ll make something good happen,” Derek said, gripping Stiles’ arms. “Please?”

Sighing, Stiles allowed Derek to help him stand and they began walking. With Derek leading, they made it back to the school rather quickly, even if Stiles felt on edge the closer they got to the school entrance. Stepping inside, his heart seemed to go crazy and his head started to throb as Derek dragged him into the guidance office.

There was no counselor sitting there, just Scott with a hand on the shoulder of the hypnotist, holding him down as he squirmed. Stiles laughed at the sight, the sound overly loud in the small and otherwise silent room. “What, is he some other kind of evil creature who saw his way inside of me?”

Derek rolled his eyes. “No.”

“Just do it, dude,” Scott said, shaking the hypnotist’s shoulder. “I know you didn’t know, but not all high schoolers can deal with hypnotism.”

The man looked confused, but his eyes widened as Scott’s eyes flashed red, and he turned to Stiles, holding up a finger in front of his face and waving it slightly until he had Stiles’ attention. “When I count to ten, you will no longer be under my control. One-”

As the man counted, so did Stiles. When he reached the last finger, flicking his other thumb out to count it, he no longer felt like he was floating slightly, and though his brain had a bit of confusion about switching from nine to ten, there was enough relief to overwhelm it.

Scott escorted the hypnotist out, leaving Stiles and Derek standing in the office. Stiles bit his lip as he turned around to face Derek, his head shaking back and forth minutely. “So, this is weird, right? Because you’re back suddenly and this is our first interaction and I just…”

“I wanted to get some things in order.” Derek stepped closer, one of his shoes just barely touching Stiles’. “It was chance that I ran into you, but I’m glad, even if the circumstances sucked.”

Stiles groaned. “Oh god, I just remembered the stuff I was saying. I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable. I obviously thought I was stuck in a nightmare, so it’s fine if you want to just pretend that didn’t happen.”

Derek smirked. “But it did happen. Like I said, the circumstances sucked. But, I’m glad you told me. If you remember, I told you I’d make something good happen. So how’s this for good?” He leaned in slowly, giving Stiles plenty of time to decide if he wanted to back away, but there was a spark there that seemed to hold him until Derek’s lips touched his own. Derek’s stubble just barely brushed his face as they turned enough to deepen the kiss, Stiles’ hands coming up to cup Derek’s face until it felt like a natural time to pull away. Derek licked at his bottom lip. “Good?”

“Yeah, but-” Stiles ran a hand through his hair. “Did you do it because you thought it would, I don’t know, placate me? Or because you wanted to?”

Reaching a hand up, Derek gripped onto Stiles shirt. “I’ve wanted to for a while. But, things were never in a good place for it. They’re still not, probably, but I think I finally got to a place where I don’t care. With all of the problems in my life, you haven’t been one of them in a very long time.”

Quietly, Stiles mirrored Derek’s gesture, their arms parallel as they gripped each other’s shirts. “Are you going to leave again?”

“At some point, yes.” Derek inhaled sharply. “But not right now. And when I do, you’ll know. And I’ll probably ask you to go with me.”

Stiles relaxed a little, pressing forward until he had his arms wrapped around Derek with Derek’s arm squished between them. “Thank you.”

Derek moved his arms to return the embrace cautiously. “What for?”

His chin digging into Derek’s shoulder as he spoke, Stiles grinned, his eyes watering with the first hint of tears. “For always being something good.”


End file.
